[FPSPACE] Vidrine not STS 41C

[CHARLES, JOHN B. (JSC-SL) (NASA)]

Heinz,

You have identified the sticking points.  Some of the questions that suggest
themselves, if the Vidrine scenario were true, are: To what extent was he
really "assigned" to the mission?  Was it in the discussion stage, like
(IIRC) Bob Stevenson on an early STS mission?  Or are we saying that Vidrine
was assigned but de-listed well into training, maybe at the point where a
quick revision to the crew patch was required?  When was the "surprise" to
be sprung?  During the first TV downlink, or an in-flight press conference? 

Some of the same questions were probably discussed during Jim Oberg's (much)
earlier thread on stow-aways aboard spacecraft.

John Charles
Houston, Texas


JBC via Blackberry


-----Original Message-----
From: fpspace-admin@friends-partners.org
<fpspace-admin@friends-partners.org>
To: AAFPSpace <fpspace@friends-partners.org>
Sent: Thu Feb 19 13:46:00 2004
Subject: [FPSPACE] Vidrine not STS 41C

"CHARLES, JOHN B. (JSC-SL) (NASA)" <john.b.charles@nasa.gov> schrieb:
> Call me clueless, but I do not recall Vidrine being publicly assigned to
the
> 41-C, certainly not within the last few months pre-flight.  I remember
> Payton and Pailes and Aldridge.  Is it just my incipient Al:eimer's, or
was
> he a stealth crewmember?

I hope, it is not the beginning of Alzheimer disease (you are nearly as old
as I am).
Where ever I look and whom ever I ask, the result was, that Vidrine was
assigned as crewmember, but also I didn't found any information that it was
published. 
On the other way, the Star-wars-missions were very secret, so I would say,
he was an assigned crewmember, but not for the public. Do you agree?

Best wishes
Heinz Janssen, Wittmund, Germany
> John Charles
> Houston, Texas
> 
> JBC via Blackberry
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fpspace-admin@friends-partners.org
> <fpspace-admin@friends-partners.org>
> To: fpspace@friends-partners.org <fpspace@friends-partners.org>
> Sent: Tue Feb 17 11:52:34 2004
> Subject: Re: [FPSPACE] Vidrine grounded, why ?
> 
> In 1979 the Air Force recruited a new class of 'spaceflight engineer' 
> to ride the Shuttle and supervise classified payloads. In effect, 
> they were to be the military equivalent of what NASA dubbed payload 
> specialists, who flew for institutional collaborators and commercial 
> customers to oversee specific payloads. They would receive complete 
> briefings on how to check out, deploy and, if necessary, spacewalk to 
> tend to secret payloads, so that it would not be necessary to supply 
> such details to NASA. Each secret payload was to shepherded by at 
> least one member of the Air Force's elite cadre. The first flight 
> opportunity was to be in 1983, but the fault with the IUS led to a 
> postponement. In the interim, the Air Force assigned David Vidrine to 
> the SolarMax repair mission to observe this ambitious spacewalk, but 
> a month before launch the Air Force decided that in-situ observation 
> would have "no value" because there was to be live video of the 
> spacewalk, and he was withdrawn from the crew. It was January 1985 
> before Gary Payton became the first spaceflight engineer to supervise 
> the deployment of a classified payload. He was followed by William 
> Pailes a few months later.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 17:30 +0000 17/2/04, Heinz Janssen wrote:
> >Moin,
> >
> >today I have updated some parts of www.spacefacts.de and I wondered, 
> >why David Vidrine was grounded a month before launch from Mission 
> >STS-41C. Any facts or ideas? Does anyone know, what's his current 
> >job?
> >
> >Best wishes
> >Heinz Janssen, Wittmund, Germany
> >
> >
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